Trying New (To Me) Comment Systems

I was taking a look at the functionality of CommentBox, the third-party comment system I’ve been using on the blog for a while now, and noticing that there seem to be some bugs in authenticating with any method other than Google. I didn’t notice because I use Google to authenticate on the Internet roughly 99% of the time. Also, I don’t often comment on my own blog.

I then noticed that CommentBox hasn’t had a new blog entry on their site since 2018, and I didn’t see any activity in their own comments for several years. Not a good sign for the future of that service.

So I started looking for new third-party comment systems which fulfil these requirements:

• Does not require me to setup hosting
• Has a usable free plan
• Is not Disqus

One place to find a relatively up-to-date list of comment systems for static sites is here, by the way. The list seems to change constantly.

In fact, I found two new options I hadn’t heard of before: Emote and GraphComment. Both of them are basically like Disqus except supposedly no ads or tracking.

Anyway, I’ve added both Emote and GraphComment to the blog. One of the advantages of rolling my own static site is that I can break all conventions and put three different comment systems on every page like a crazy person. If you find one doesn’t work, try a different one!

So far I’m liking Emote more than GraphComment, but that’s only after the most superficial of reviews.